ROBE SPIIDER

ROBE SPIIDER

At Creative Productions, the time came for us to update our fleet of moving wash fixtures. Opting for the Robe Spiiders was an easy choice. We were seeing Robe Spiiders specified on lots of international riders, and as we already had a lot of success with Robe fixtures, we invested in forty-eight units nearly a year ago. We now have over three hundred various Robe fixtures in our inventory.

Dave Jackson is the CEO of Creative Productions, one of Australia’s leading concert production providers. With offices in Brisbane and Sydney, Creative Productions have worked with the most recognised names in the business, from worldwide touring artists such as Metallica , Bullet for my Valentine, Paramore, Alice in Chains, The Wombats, and Marilyn Manson, to major corporate clients that include Michael Hill, MTV, McLaren, Rolls Royce, Aston Martin, and Volvo.

The Spiider is a moving washbeam LED fixture which comprises one 60W RGBW and eighteen 40W RGBW LED multichips. I primarily use them as wash fixtures, and they are great.

I quite like the large head which delivers a more traditional PAR64 type large diameter beam. The wide variable four to fifty degree zoom is smooth and offers great flexibility.

As well as being rigged in trusses, we use them a lot floor mounted and for side wash band looks.

They are unbelievably bright! They deliver a hefty 11,000 lumens, which we need because we routinely have to get over the top of increasingly brighter LED screens.

We have to have a lot of punch, and they’ve got it in spades, which means we comfortably use them instead of discharge lamp fixtures. On camera they look great with no noticeable flicker.

The colours are pretty much perfect with good saturation. Colour temperature adjustment is accurate. We are seeing a trend where we need less spot fixtures because the Spiiders are just so flexible.

For example, I used to do a gig with twenty-four wash and thirty-two spot fixtures. Now with the Spiiders, I can get a bigger show look with forty-eight Spiiders and just twelve spots because I can get so many different beam looks out of the Spiiders.

They’ve got nineteen distinct beams and as you’d expect for any decent fixture nowadays, the LEDs are individually addressable so you can do pixel mapping.

Using up to 123 channels and a daunting amount of available modes, the Spiider has lots of tricks and we haven’t come close to using these to their full potential as yet.

They’ve got their cool flower effects built-in, which create ten or so multicolour beam effects in the air rotating in both directions at variable speed (apparently being patented).

They are great effects to ‘just grab’ when you need to create a dynamic look really quickly.

They are lightweight at only thirteen kilograms, and their size is pretty compact for what they are. That means we pack four units to a case, which takes less warehouse space.

With everyone wanting to keep trucking costs down nowadays, transporting them is efficient.

The technology Robe put into their gear, especially the motors and LED drivers, is top notch.

Robe have a ‘secret sauce’ lens coating technology that claims to make them brighter and reduce scratches. While it is hard to determine if it does what it says (we don’t want to scratch them intentionally to test it), we definitely haven’t seen any problems with lenses getting scratched!

Being LEDs, they don’t seem to suck up much of the festival or DF50 crud, so their mechanics are quite stable, resulting in longer intervals between service. Our units have been rock solid and we’ve had very few issues with them, and when we did, we’ve had great support from Jands.

Spiiders are definitely worth having. In terms of value for money, they are the light to have. We are certainly ready for our next batch!

Brand: Robe
Model: Spiider
Product Info: www.robe.cz/spiider
Australia: www.jands.com.au
New Zealand: jands.nz

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ROBE SPIIDER – THE SPECS

Light Source Types
1x 60W RGBW and 18x 40W RGBW LED multichips

Optical System
Zoom range: 4° – 50°
Fixture total lumen output: 11,000 lm

Dynamic Effects
Colour mixing mode RGBW or CMY Variable CTO: 2.700K – 8.000K
Virtual Colour Wheel: with 66 preset swatches
Tungsten lamp effect at whites: 2.700K and 3.200K (red shift and thermal delay)
Colour rainbow effect with variable speed
Pre-programmed pixel effects with colour, dimming and strobe chases, waves and pulses at variable speed and direction
MCFE – Multi-Coloured Flower Effects – multicolour beam effects in the air rotating in both directions at variable speed (patent pending)
Strobe effect: variable speed (max. 20 flashes per second)
Pre-programmed random strobe & pulse effects
High resolution electronic dimming: 0 – 100%

Movement
Pan movement: 540°
Tilt movement: 220°
EMS: Electronic Motion Stabilizer system for Pan & Tilt reducing beam deviation caused by truss movement or vibration (Patent pending)
Automatic Pan/Tilt position correction

Electrical Specifications and Connections
Max Power consumption: 600 W
DMX and RDM data in/out: Locking 3-pin & 5-pin XLR
Ethernet port in/out: RJ45 with Embedded Ethernet switch
Dimensions (H) 477 (W)390 (D)252 mm Weight: 13kg
Ingress protection rating: IP20

CX Magazine – February 2020   

LIGHTING  |  AUDIO  |  VIDEO  |  STAGING  |  INTEGRATION

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